


V-Log

by go_higher



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crack, Drama, Gen, Humor, Multi, Team Dynamics, also- who keeps styling minho's hair like a cucumber, clownery, listen-, minho lives his dream of being a vlogger, minsung like to harrass everyone, who are you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18644026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/go_higher/pseuds/go_higher
Summary: Minho has a camera.Stray Kids suffer.





	V-Log

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! Not to worry, my other story will continue, but I thought I'd do something a little more light-hearted with sporadic updates :D 
> 
> Super special thanks to my new beta kathi_linchen who was amazing in catching my errors! You're the best! Let's work together in the future more :D
> 
> Thank you <3 <3 <3
> 
> Enjoy folks :)

“Hello~!”

The camera shakes and opens on a familiar, smiling face, way too close to the screen.

“Oh- you can’t see me,” the owner of the face says- and steps back a bit.

Minho beams, flashing a peace sign near his eyes.

“Hello everyone! This is Stray Kids’ Lee Know. How are you? Did you eat?” he questions with a voice somehow both cheerful and completely dead inside.

He’s in the living room, lit by the white afternoon light shining through the windows.

There doesn’t appear to be anyone else around and the dorm seems very quiet.

Minho, holding the stick to the camera, starts to wave it back and forth, manually zooming in and out on his eye.

“Now you see me, now you don’t, now you see me, now you don’t, I’m a ghost, am I a ghost? I’m going to haunt your dreams-”

A door slams.

Minho’s head turns, eyes wide. A grin tugs at his lips. He looks back to the camera excitedly, pulling it close, whispering loud and fast.

“Changbinnie’s coming out his room- I’m going to scare him. Hold on, please.”

There’s a sickeningly blurry view of the ceiling, Minho’s hand, the floor and then a table before the camera is uprighted and shoved between a spot on the TV between the monitor and video game console.

Minho glances at the screen, satisfied, then vanishes out of frame.

The view is now focused on the center of the living room and their large couch.

A short moment passes by.

Changbin walks into sight from the left, donned in a t-shirt, white cap and sweats.

He looks serious and confused.

For a moment, all he does is stand in the middle of the room, glancing around.

Then his brow furrows and he turns his back to go-

_“YAA!”_

“Yaa _AAAAAA!”_

Changbin screams as Minho leaps in from the right, the hideous mask from their trip to Australia pulled over his face.

They hit the ground.

There’s the view of flailing arms and legs and sounds of yelling and then-

 

* * *

 

The camera reopens approximately two hours later in the corner of the living room, perched on a windowsill.

Jisung smiles wide and moves back.

The eight other members of Stray Kids are gathered in the middle, standing in a half ring around two chairs.

Woojin and Chan are thigh-wrestling.

Sort of.

Woojin’s really just sitting there while Chan struggles to open his legs, veins bulging, cheeks flushed an angry red.

The other members chant.

“Chicken, chicken, _chicken, chicken-_ ”

“We already. Ate it. _Yesterday!_ ” Chan screams through his suffering.

The chants get louder.

Woojin sits back, folds his arms, and closes his legs in.

Chan pops up out of his seat for one second before falling sideways onto the ground.

Everyone cheers.

Woojin smirks, looking down at their leader like some sort of smug overlord. “Chicken it is.”

Chan groans into the floor. “Nooo....”

“My turn!” Minho says all of a sudden.

He brightly pushes forward to the front, away from where he’d been standing with his arms around Felix and Jeongin. Without hesitation, he plops into the abandoned chair across from their eldest hyung.

Woojin raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Minho chooses the defensive position and sticks his knees in between Woojin’s own. He’s smiling. “Let’s go.”

The match begins.

For a moment there’s a bout of strong effort as both their legs tense.

Then Minho stops trying and Woojin looks up at him, confused, but even more confused as the younger boy bends all the way over and sticks his head above his lap. 

He doesn’t move.

Woojin stares.

The other members glance between them.

”Uhh,” Woojin looks at them and then back to the top of Minho’s head. “What are you-?”

He yelps and leaps from his seat.

There’s a flurry of commotion as the other members break into confused panic. Chan shoots up from the floor as Minho sits up in his chair, grinning victoriously.

“What? What? What?” their leader questions, alarmed.

Woojin rubs the inside of his thigh in disbelief and pain, half-mad, but mostly surprised, ignoring Chan as he points to Minho and exclaims-

“Ya! You bit a hole!”

Minho cackles.

Hyunjin’s eyes narrow.

He shoves past Woojin, who’s hopping around on one leg torn between laughter and cursing, and drops himself into the chair across from Minho.

“Let’s fight,” he says without any preamble.

Minho stops grinning immediately.

The other members stare.

Jisung takes one look at them as Hyunjin aligns his knees inside of Minho’s- then dashes for the camera.

Too late.

Seungmin counts them down.

“1, 2-”

Minho snaps his thighs shut. 

The screen goes black.

 

* * *

 

“Why’d you hit it, Sungie?” is the first complaint heard as the camera’s turned back on.

It tilts up from the darkness of the floor, catching a blurry sock and knee and then the ceiling before being properly fixed again.

Minho frowns, poking at the screen with a finger as it slowly gains focus.

In the background, Hyunjin lies motionless, flopped on the floor.

The other members are gathered around his body- staring.

“Ya.” Changbin says after a long silence. “I think he’s dead.”  

Minho blinks at the announcement- something like concern pinching his face- then turns on his knee slightly to look at everyone else.

“Are we still getting chicken?”

 

* * *

 

_“Whooooo!”_

The camera suddenly, aggressively, zooms in and out on a backpack Changbin is packing.

“Say ‘hello’ Binnie,” Minho says.

Changbin’s eye looks up.

“Don’t zoom in so close,” Changbin says.

“ _Don’t zoom in so close_ ,” Minho mocks.

The view is now Changbin’s irritated, dilated pupil.

“Ya!”

“ _y_ A!”

The camera violently shakes. The screen goes blurry and black and colored again, zooming out from Changbin’s left nostril and onto a more pleasant view of his face.

“What are you packing?” Minho asks.

Changbin shows off the inside of his backpack.

It’s full of water bottles.

Minho’s hand reaches in view, playing with the water bottles in the bag and digging around in search of anything beneath them.

“Ohhh, good job, good job. You packed well.”

Changbin smacks his hand.

It disappears and the camera swings from the backpack back to Changbin’s face.

“What are we doing today, Bin?” Minho questions.

“We’re going on a hike.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because you’re making us.”

“That’s right.”

And Minho sounds ridiculously pleased.

 

* * *

 

The camera cuts out, then splits open again to reveal Chan and Woojin in the kitchen.

It’s a somewhat awkward, tilted view, blurry and moving up and down.

Neither of them notice.

They seem to be in a deep discussion.

“But if we don’t pack the choco-pies, they’ll get mad,” Chan is saying, looking at the mass of junky snacks spread on the table in front them.

”If they don’t know we had them, they can’t get mad,” Woojin says.

The camera zooms in incredibly close on his face.

“Let’s just eat them.”

“No, they’ll know,” Chan argues, and now the view is back to it’s strange tilt, catching sight of their leader scratching the back of his neck in thought. “Maybe we shouldn’t bring any food at all.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Woojin says, his face going in and out of frame as the screen bounces up and down in agreement.

Chan sighs. “You’re right. I guess we’ll just have to carry an extra bag.”

“Who’s going to carry it?”

“You don’t want to?”

“No.”

“I guess we can ask Seungmin.“

“So he can throw it off the road?”

“Good point. Maybe Changbin-“

Chan glances up and stops, looking straight into the camera.

There’s a startled shake before the screen twists and blurs and dips out of sight.

 

* * *

 

The view is Minho’s striped, socked feet as he wiggles his toes.

A small giggle and then he’s shoving them into his sneakers with one hand, the other struggling to keep the camera steady.

He fails.

There’s an incredible, nauseating amount of motion until he’s done.

Then the ground is much farther away as he stands and shifts the camera a short distance over.

Jisung looks up and gives a cheery closed-mouth smile as the camera moves from the boots he’s tying and on to his face.

“Hello,” he greets.

“Hello,” Minho greets back. His hand slips into view to grab and shake Jisung’s before disappearing again. “Are you excited?”

“Oh, I’m _so_ excited!”

“As expected! Just how excited are you Jisung-shi?”

“ _Suuper_ excited! I could fly to the sky!”

Minho cheers. “Waa! Me too!”

“Good,” a third voice suddenly says. “Do that and never come back.”

The camera whips to the left where Hyunjin sits, pulling on his shoes.

He seems annoyed.

And still in pain- if the way he’s moving his legs while grimacing has anything to say about it.

The frame shakes up and down as Minho snickers, slowly zooming in on the other boy’s face.

“Hyunjin-shi, you seem upset. Is that anyway to speak to an elder?”

Hyunjin looks away from his laces and gives him the blankest stare.

Minho pans the camera up to the dancer’s eyebrows and zooms in.

“How do you feel about losing? Please tell the audience.”

Hyunjin bats an arm. The screen dips, then realigns itself with Hyunjin’s eyebrows again, this time even closer.

“Hyunjin-shi, please respond. The audience wants answers. These eyebrows look new. Where did you get them?”

 

* * *

 

For a while all the camera records are the sounds of shrieking and yelling and numerous thuds.

 

* * *

 

“Yes, this is Woojin!” The eldest member of Stray Kids greets the newly opened screen thirty minutes later.

His face is bright and cheery.

He appears to be walking alongside an open road with very few cars passing by, tall and lush and vibrantly green trees in the background against a blue and cloudy sky.

The dirt and gravel crunch beneath his shoes.

He wears a dark blue tee with a random patch of white stripes across the front, shoulders fitted with the brown straps of an old backpack from his younger school days.

The lower halves of Jeongin and Seungmin’s bodies can be seen behind him in the frame.

They’re similarly dressed down.

Well- Jeongin is.

It’s unclear why Seungmin’s wearing khakis and a collared polo when the rest of them are obviously dressed for a hike in the woods.

“Did you guys eat?” Woojin asks, bringing the camera close down to his eyes and then far away again. He smiles nicely. “What are you doing?”

“Hyung, you know it’s not a VLIVE, right?” Felix asks from somewhere off to the side.

Woojin glances over.

A moment later, the younger boy pops into view. He smiles into the lens.

“Hello! This is Felix. We are going on a hike.”

“It’s a terrible idea,” Jeongin drones from behind.

Woojin and Felix look over their shoulders and slow their pace.

Jeongin and Seungmin move into frame.

“We let Minho-hyung choose the path today,” Jeongin says to the screen. He’s smiling but his eyes are full of dread. “We’re not coming back.”

All three of his hyungs look at him- but they can’t really disagree.

“We’re here!” Minho’s voice sounds off from somewhere ahead.

The four in front the camera simultaneously turn their heads to see.

The camera follows a moment after.

Minho’s up ahead doing stretches at the entrance to the trail leading off the road and up onto a forested hill.

A little ways behind him is Hyunjin, staring at a wooden board with what is supposed to be a map nailed on top its moldy planks.

Woojin zooms in.

Hyunjin’s face, unreadable, glances over.

Woojin lowers the camera to the map below.

It’s barely legible, yellow, and covered in suspiciously dark stains and wads of gum, torn from one corner to the other by a giant claw that can’t possibly belong to any animal on this earth.

For a moment, everyone is silent.

Then Felix speaks.

“So we’re going back, right?”

“We can’t.”

They turn around to see a resigned Chan and straight-faced Changbin bringing up the rear.

Jisung is a little ways behind them eating a choco-pie.

“We owe him,” Chan sighs.

“Do we?” Jisung questions, cheeks stuffed. The camera struggles to focus on his face as he digs around in his pockets for another cake. “It wasn’t really everyone’s faults. Just Bin-hyung’s.”

“Ya-” Changbin turns on the younger boy. “Why was it my fault? None of you noticed either.”

“Yeah, but you had been sitting next to him for like an hour,” Jisung points outs. “How come you didn’t notice he was gone?”

“I didn’t know he left.”

“Didn’t he tell you he was going to the bathroom?” Seungmin questions.

Changbin looks at him, a bit annoyed. “He didn’t.”

And Jeongin speaks. “No... hyung... he definitely looked at you and said it. And you said, ‘okay’, and nodded.”

The camera whips from the youngest member’s face to Changbin’s betrayed one at the speed of light.

“If you heard him say it to me, then you knew he was going to the bathroom too!”

“But I thought he came back.”

“Look-” The camera settles on Chan and zooms out to give his head and shoulders a nice shot.

Sunlight casts a glow on him from overhead, pointlessly dramatic but pretty.

“It was everyone’s fault, okay? Mostly Minho’s- but ours too. We should’ve double-checked- I should’ve double-checked- before we drove off. But we can make it right- and apologize- by doing what he wants today. Stray Kids, nine or none. Let’s fix this.”

Jisung starts to clap. “Wise words, leader-nim.”

Chan gives him a look.

Woojin gives Chan a look.

“I don’t think he was upset.”

He turns and the camera turns with him, focusing on Minho now bent over and poking at something on the ground with a twig.

“He’s fine.”

“You didn’t hear him crying in the shower,” Seungmin mutters from behind.

“No. That’s just how he sings when he’s in there,” Woojin responds.

“Like he’s having a life crisis?” And Seungmin’s voice is so incredibly flat.

Woojin doesn’t answer.

Up ahead Minho has finally realized no one else is around him.

He glances about the forested area in front of him confused before spinning and catching sight of the camera and everyone else behind it.

Even without a zoom in, the frown is easy to see as it tugs down his lips.

 _“What are you guys doing?”_ he calls.

“Just talking!” Woojin easily calls back.

The camera moves forward, towards Minho.

Hyunjin, still by the map, is looking at the smaller but older boy with open judgement.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Woojin asks as Minho draws near.

The other boy’s palm blocks half the screen before the camera is flipped around and swapped, showing off all the members instead.

Except for Hyunjin.

“It’s the right one,” Minho says from behind the screen. It shakes a bit. “I come here sometimes.”

Jisung nods his head in the far background.

The camera pauses- then zooms in fast, the screen going blurry before focusing on the new choco-pie in his hand.

For a moment all it does is track the motion of the snack rising towards Jisung’s mouth. Then it pulls out.

The rest of the members are still staring Minho’s way.

“When do you even have time to come here?” Chan incredulously asks.

“No. _Why_ do you come here?” Seungmin stresses.

There’s a significant pause.

The camera whips around abruptly towards the trail as Minho marches ahead, voice light and airy as he asks-  

“Should we go?”

 

* * *

 

Haggard breathing fills the air.

The view is the lower corner of Felix’s chin and his neck as he struggles.

It’s unclear where exactly they are, but the tall trees leaning in the background indicate a very steep and uneven uphill ascent.

Felix stumbles. His head dips out of sight, then reappears.

He glances into the camera, still at an awkward lower angle.

“This is the dumbest thing we’ve ever done.”

There’s sudden yelling from behind.

Felix halts on the trail, turning, the camera following to see Jeongin and Woojin trying to pull Hyunjin out a small ditch down the path.

Changbin and Chan are watching.

Seungmin’s sitting on the ground, rolling his khakis up to his knees.

Further back are Minho and Jisung, posing for a scenic selfie.

The camera shifts and drops, showing only half of Felix’s body as he stares at his members.

Then he glances into the camera, turns, and starts to hike uphill again.

He shakes his head, looking one-hundred percent done.

 

* * *

 

Chan’s smiling but somewhat strained face greets the screen as it opens up from below.

He seems to be leaned over, hair falling over his forehead as his hands work on something in front of the camera.

“So things are going great,” he says in English. “Hyunjin lost a shoe but we got it back- eventually- even though it’s completely unwearable and covered in.... something.”

Chan’s expression contorts as he grunts.

Something snaps.

He glances at the camera again, smiling.

“Jisung tripped over a rock and rolled backwards a quarter of a mile a short while ago. Lucky he rolled into some bushes, yeah? And not off the cliff.”

Chan pulls away a bit quickly, his arms that had been out of sight moving into the frame as he gets up hastily, a towering figure from the low viewpoint with a thick branch in his hands.

He nods at the camera with the fakest grin.

“Right.”

He disappears.

For a moment there’s nothing on camera but the shadowed, reaching leaves and branches of the trees against the blue sky.

There’s a commotion in the background, splashing water, the sound of running, shouting, a jumbled mix of Korean and English and garbled yelling-

And a palm falls into sight, lifting the camera.

The screen is a messy whirl as it’s spun in the right direction, settling on a familiar, bright-eyed face.

“Ahh, we meet again,” Minho says with a somewhat annoying smirk.

He looks perfectly put-together, not even a single strand of hair out of place.

He pulls the camera in close to his eyeball.

“Did you miss me?”

More yelling in the background.

Minho withdraws, looking over his shoulder.

For a second all he does is gaze at whatever’s happening beyond the screen.

A moment after that, he nods, and looks at the camera, eyebrows raising in curiosity.

“Wanna see what we’re doing?”

He walks, the view on the side of his head as he holds the camera at a high angle and maneuvers through the trees.

The voices and sound of rushing water get louder.

Words are discernible now.

“Just hold on!”

“I’ve been holding on for ten minutes! Just hurry and get me out!”

“You go to the gym, hyung. It can’t be that hard.”

“Han Jisung, I swear _to god-_ ”

The screen moves off Minho’s head and onto a wide shot of a bank full of grey and white stones alongside a foamy, rushing river.

Woojin is stripping off his shirt as Chan stands halfway in the water, trying to reach the big stick in his hands towards Changbin.

Changbin who’s stuck, arms wrapped around a mossy log from an old tree, on the verge of being whisked away by the current.

Amazingly, his cap is still on his head.

The camera shakes and rattles, going out of focus for a short bit as Minho zooms in fast on Changbin’s face.

His eyes are wide, jaw clenched, clearly struggling to hold on.

His gaze goes from his hands grasping at the log and up to the screen.

He gets pissed.

“Ya! Quit filming and help!”

Minho hums, zooming back out, and turns so that he can capture all of their members and himself on screen.

Jisung is squatting on the bank, watching Changbin watching Minho.

Jeongin is standing next to Jisung, worried, Felix beside him, with a look on his face that says he’s not sure whether to join Woojin in the water rescue effort or not.

Hyunjin and Seungmin are just lying on the ground, eyes closed, completely ignoring the situation.

Minho smiles into the camera, lips curling soft and oddly pretty. “Changbinnie! Say ‘hello’!”  

He waves the camera back and forth like it’s a hand.

Changbin’s eyes grow wide in rage.

He seems to forget where he is for a moment because he let’s go of the log in search of something to throw at Minho’s head.

He’s promptly sucked underwater.

Jeongin shrieks.

Felix yells.

Chan abandons his useless stick to dive in the river alongside Woojin.

Changbin, now significantly further down the river, resurfaces only for an instant to holler-

 _“LEE MINHO!_ ”  

And then he’s gone again with a bunch of garbled noises as he’s swept out of frame and out of sight.

Minho watches the spot where Changbin used to be a good minute ago.

Then he turns, and the camera accompanies him, as he goes to bother Hyunjin and Seungmin instead.

 

* * *

 

“Why are we roasting marshmallows? It’s two PM,” comes Seungmin’s flat voice from overhead.

He glances down into the camera as someone answers off to the side.

What they say is inaudible but it makes him roll his eyes.

“He should do it himself,” Seungmin mutters.

He gets up, the camera catching nothing but his shirt for a good long while as chatter happens in the background and the sounds of backpacks being unzipped come in muffled from all sides.

The shirt and Seungmin are gone after a while, replaced with Hyunjin’s face who is looking at the screen like it’s one of the things he hates most in the world.

“Should toss this...” he mumbles.

“Minho-hyung would get mad.”

“Who cares?”

Hyunjin shifts and allows the curious and slightly scratched face of Jeongin to join him in what appears to be a small, dark space.

“The quality on this is good?” Jeongin says, seeming surprised as he pulls his head back a bit.

He checks himself in the screen, poking at his own scratched cheek.

Hyunjin turns his head to look at him. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really.” Jeongin pokes it again. “It did at first but it’s not as bad as what happened to Changbin-hyung.”

Hyunjin looks back at the camera, unbothered. He fixes his hair. “At least we found him.”

Someone calls their names off-screen.

Their heads swing over to the right.

“Coming!”

 

* * *

 

Minho’s humming, smiling, making cheerful closed-eye faces into the camera.

There’s a bounce in his step.

“What’s that?”

Minho’s eyes open. He stops and glances somewhere to the right.

“What is _what?_ ” Hyunjin asks.

“ _That_.”

The camera’s still at a downward angle, pointed from above on Minho’s turned head.

His expression is somewhat unreadable, though there’s slight confusion.

“I don’t know, leave it alone,” comes Woojin’s voice after a moment.

“Do you think there’s something in it?”

“Leave it alone, Jisung,” now Chan is saying too.

“No, but-“

“Jisung, no!” Felix yells all of a sudden.

Minho’s eyes widen.

Everyone screams.

The camera flips and swings and shakes in every direction, chaos unfolded, screen blurring and glitching and freezing over images of the ground and sky and trees and dirt and hideous candid expressions from all the members as they shove one another and sprint off the walking trail and barrel through what appears to be the woods.

Then the view pitches and plummets down and hits the earth, going dark and muted.

 

* * *

 

When the camera opens again, it’s on a group of distraught boys, all staring at one another accusingly.

Minho fiddles with the screen, just the corner of his lips in view as an argument breaks out in the background.

“What do you mean it’s gone?”

“I mean it’s gone. I must’ve dropped it,” Seungmin is telling Hyunjin.

“It was the only food we had,” comes Changbin’s disbelieving voice from off to the side.

The screen jerks a bit as Minho tries to fix something out of sight with the camera.

A portion of Changbin’s body can be seen, absolutely drenched and covered in mud with eyes just a bit too wide and slightly unhinged.

Minho makes a small noise of disapproval and moves his own face back into frame.

The bickering gets louder.

“Well it’s not my fault- I was busy running from all the bees.”

“Ya, don’t look at me,” Jisung protests. One of his hands can be seen raising defensively towards himself. “No one knew they were there.”

“You shouldn’t be throwing rocks at suspicious mounds hanging off of trees in the first place!” Hyunjin snaps.

“I wanted to know what it was!”

“It was a beehive!”

“Well I know that _now!_ ”

“Guys, guys,” and it’s Chan stepping in now.

The camera is flipped around, showing the full view of the eight members standing, ready to fight in the middle of a clearing, backpacks and water bottles scattered across the ground.

The screen shakes and blurs as Minho struggles behind it.

“We had a few mishaps, it’s fine,” Chan's trying to assure everyone, arms held out between Changbin and Jisung. “We can just go back and get real food.”

“And pretend none of this ever happened,” Woojin says from behind their leader.

“Right- that too,” Chan agrees.

Changbin stares at them. “Then what was the point in coming out here? We didn’t do anything. I almost drowned.”

“You fell off that log yourself,” Jisung tells him.

“Trying to get your shoe!” Changbin says in disbelief.

The camera lowers with perfect timing as Minho works, showing off Jisung’s bare left foot, toes wiggling.

“Why don’t we blame the one who made us come out here?” Hyunjin suggests instead.

Eight heads turn and look into the camera.

“Hyung, what are you doing?” Seungmin asks.

“The battery’s dying,” Minho’s voice says. “It won’t open.”

Jeongin pulls away from the others, drawing close to the screen to help.

The camera’s flipped towards the ground.

There’s a lot of motion and sounds of struggle.

“I think we have to turn the camera off to change it first,” Jeongin’s voice says.

“No, hold on...”

There’s a successful clicking noise.

“See!” Minho’s sounds victorious.

“Do you have the other battery?” Seungmin questions, voice much louder and closer than before.

The view is of their three muddy and tattered sneakers gathered together.

There’s a long pause.

Then Minho says-

“It’s in the bag.”

“Which bag?” Seungmin wonders.

Another pause.

This one far longer.

“Which bag?” Seungmin asks again, sounding full of dread.

And Minho shortly answers.

“The one with the snacks.”

 

* * *

 

The camera’s turned on again.

The screen is significantly cloudy and riddled in scratches.

Woojin is seen pulling himself and Chan out of hole in the ground.

There’s a round of applause from the members watching as their missing bags of snacks are successfully rescued.

The camera turns, showing Jisung’s cheery face.

“Now we can change the battery. Hold on a sec-”

The screen goes black.

 

* * *

 

“The snacks were inedible,” is the first thing Minho says when the screen’s turned on again.

He’s uncomfortably close to the camera, showing off the inside of one nostril.

“We saved the battery though since it was in another, smaller bag.”

The camera thankfully zooms out and shows his face.

He reaches up to idly brush his own bangs. “Changbin cried and Woojin stared at a tree for ten minutes, but I think they’re okay now.”

He pauses, expression falling into thought.

“It is kind of late though. Everyone wants to head back-”

“Minho, come on!” someone yells off screen.

Chan- and he sounds frustrated.

Minho’s eyes get a little big in surprise.

He glances back at the camera, then gets up to go.

“Chan-hyung gets hangry,” he mutters before the camera cuts to darkness.

 

* * *

 

It’s a good long while before it’s opened up again.

The sun is lower in the sky, now darkening and turning orange.

For a moment the screen stays on the sky, trying to focus. Then it’s tilted to the ground, filming leaves and mud and a centipede crawling along, shaking unsteadily.

“Aha!”

Minho’s triumphant cheer.

The screen raises with gusto and captures Chan staring into the sky with the expression of a man going through a mid-life crisis.

It swings over to the left where Woojin and Felix stand on the path, pressed close together, brows furrowed, on their phones.

The camera moves in closer as Minho walks over.

“What are you doing?” he asks lightly.

They both glance up at the screen and glare.

“Trying to find the way home,” Woojin says.

“We’re not lost,” Minho says, amused.

“We’ve walked this area for three hours,” Felix says back, way less amused.

“Just go away,” Woojin sighs, seeming very, very annoyed.

The camera moves away as Minho makes a noise, flipping onto his face as he walks away.

“They’re no fun,” he mutters, eyes searching ahead for someone to bother.

He must have found someone because his eyes brighten.

The camera bobs as he rushes forward, spinning to zoom in on Changbin’s nose.

“What? What? What? What are you doing?” Minho’s voice persistently questions as Changbin’s hand tries desperately to push the screen out of his face.

Changbin lets out a supremely aggravated yell.

He must have pushed Minho harder than he meant, because the camera jolts and then stops.

It lowers slightly.

For a minute all that can be seen is an underneath angle of Changbin staring at Minho, something still irritated but also somewhat sorry settling in his expression.

But before he can say anything, the camera twists away.

It captures the ground and a bit of the rocky path and thick, round tree trunks as one of Minho’s sneakered feet go in and out of sight. 

The camera drops.

Is grabbed.

Turned over again.

Revealing Minho’s creased brow and small frown.

He’s quiet.

He also seems to be sitting on an overturned log.

His eyes search the screen, as though looking at his own face through the lens, frown growing deeper the longer he stares.

Then his gaze lifts and wanders, resting on something in front of him.

Whatever he’s watching, makes him frown more.

This is the view for several minutes.

Then Minho’s gaze drifts to the side and follows something drawing near.

A second after, half of Jisung’s body pops into view as he sits on the log beside him.

A quarter of his face can be seen as he turns his head to look Minho’s way.

He offers a closed-mouth, piggy-cheeked smile, blinking his eyes as though trying to speak to the other boy without words.

Minho returns the stare for just a short bit, before making a face and looking at the ground.

Jisung’s smile falls.

His hand closest to Minho reaches out and drops onto Minho’s knee, shaking it slightly.

For a long while, nothing happens.

Minho gazes down at something unseen beyond the camera.

Then his free hand comes and lands on top of Jisung’s own.

They play with each other’s fingers for a time, smiles returning slowly.

Finally, Jisung speaks. “You okay, hyung?”

“They’re not having fun,” Minho responds.

A snort breaks free from Jisung’s lips. “Yeah, no, they hate it.”

But he laughs and makes Minho laugh too.

“But it’s okay. Fresh air is good. They’ll be glad later.”

“Maybe not Changbin.”

“Maybe not Bin-hyung,” Jisung agrees. “You know, he went a long way.”

“The water was much faster than I thought,” Minho notes, but his eyes are wide and glimmering in pure mirth, grin getting bigger and bigger by the seconds.

He and Jisung laugh again.

Minho glances at the camera then, like he forgot it was there, cheerfulness slipping off only for a second before it comes back.

He raises the camera and moves the view so that it’s angled down from above, capturing both their bright faces.

“Jisung-shi, how do you feel right now?”

“Waa, I’m feeling _so_ good right now! The best!”

The camera pulls in and films a close-up of Jisung’s eye.

“Jisung-shi, is this the truth?” Minho questions. “You can’t lie on film.”

The camera’s pulled back out.

Jisung looks over at Minho and grins, like it should be obvious, a given fact, how he felt.

“Of course it is! How could you have any doubts? This moment is the best!”

He punches Minho in the arm.

Minho punches back.

They start to push each other in and out of frame.

 

* * *

 

“Well we’re finally on our way back,” Felix says into the camera.

The sky is almost navy beyond his shoulders as he lines the screen with a partial view of his face.

He appears to be looking down at something as he walks, being careful.

“It’s a bit tricky,” he utters to himself in English.

He looks up again and flashes a short-lasting grin.

He switches back to Korean.

“I know I said it was a bad idea, but it was sort of good in the end. No one got hurt- too much. And we’re all still here.”

He shifts the camera so it catches the view behind him as he descends.

Coming down the path is an utterly exhausted Hyunjin with Jeongin cradled under an arm, pressed close together, Jeongin smiling and making jokes too quiet to hear.

Further behind them is Seungmin watching the two with an entirely blank face as he picks his way down.

He stumbles over a small grove in the ground and plummets forward, barreling into them and sending them all into the dirt.

Woojin and Chan, further back, watch the debacle with identical done expressions.

Felix sighs and brings the camera back around onto his face.

“It’s been a long day.”

He seems to notice something ahead because his expression changes into exasperation.

“At least someone’s happy,” he mutters.

Turning the camera towards the front, the view is Minho and Jisung skipping like a pair of children down to the bottom of the trail.

Changbin’s between them, feet dragging, covered in muck as his arms are forcibly swung back and forth by the two holding his hands.

They’re singing an annoying children’s song.

“Ya ya ya yaa, ya ya _ya ya ya ya ya-_ ”

“Aa _aauugh!_ ” Changbin screams, throwing his head back. “Let me go!”

Felix sighs again and pulls the camera close, looking for something.

Exhaustion’s back on his face.

“This is Stray Kids- Felix out- got to go save Bin-hyung.”

The camera cuts out.

**Author's Note:**

> :D TBC


End file.
